There were complaints over the "disgusting" state of Marlow town centre after an annual festive gathering last week, with police saying they were forced to intervene and stop children causing the mess.

After a largely successful Late Night Shopping which saw thousands take to the streets, residents and retailers say the High Street was covered in ‘silly string’ sprayed all over buildings, as well as rubbish and food waste from the busy event.

Revellers took to social media complain about the strands of plastic foam plastered on the fronts of buildings and the pavement. 

Anna Morant said on Facebook: "Just walking down the High Street, and the sheer amounts of silly string everwhere, including shop windows is disgusting!

"Everyone loves the late night shopping, but can’t MTC [Marlow Town Council] request that shops not sell this stuff on that particular day/evening. It’s not fair on the people who have to clean up after."

Police say they did warn groups of children about their actions durng the evening.

Acting Chief Inspector Scott Messenger, whose neighbourhood teams provided ectras policing for the event, said: "There were no criminal offences but PCSOs did provide suitable words of advice to a group of children and some of their parents about acceptable behaviour.

"This was regarding their use of spray snow and silly string. The children in question were very young, some of them primary school age, and to their credit heeded the advice of PCSOs.

"Other than this the event went extremely well."

Late Night Shopping organiser Marlow Chamber of Commerce said it is aware of the problem each year and usually asks stall holders and shops to refrain from selling it on the night.

Yet several High Street pop-up stalls and shops continued to sell the silly string products to children during the event.

Wycombe District Council, which operates the clean-up effort, said it put extra resources on the job after Thursday’s event.

Spokesman Nick Sykes said: "A Contract Monitoring Officer inspected the area afterwards and was satisfied with the contractor’s performance.

"We are aware that in some places the party product ‘silly string’ had been squirted onto shop windows; however we do not have responsibility for cleaning the shop frontages.

"The area was litter picked throughout the evening and cleansed after the event. A van full of litter was collected."